Sushma Swaraj UNGA speech arrogant, India bigoted, but Pakistan does have terrorism: Chinese media

A Global Times editorial admitted that there indeed is terrorism in Pakistan as it accused India of being bigoted towards Islamabad and suggested that Sushma Swaraj was arrogant in her speech at the UN General Assembly.

IndiaToday.in  | Edited by Dev Goswami
New Delhi, September 26, 2017 | UPDATED 08:16 IST

Highlights

  • 1
    Sushma's UN speech aimed at inflaming nationalism in India: Global Times
  • 2
    There indeed is terrorism in Pakistan: Global Times
  • 3
    The editorial was titled, "India's bigotry no match for its ambition"

There is terrorism in Pakistan, an editorial in the hawkish Global Times grudgingly admitted even as it suggested that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's speech at the United Nations General Assembly was arrogant and aimed at inflaming nationalism in India.

The Global Times seemingly compared Swaraj's tone at the UNGA to US President Donald Trump and his nationalistic outlook. "By inflaming nationalism in the Indian public, Indians become more determined to make India first than even US President Donald Trump's 'America First,'" the paper said.

Swaraj's "rebuking [Pakistan's] foolishness and ugliness" may have "moved herself and the whole country," the editorial also said. "But it is a grave disaster when Indians are confident in their rightness and their neighbors' [sic] wrongs while super-proud of India's capabilities in cultivating engineers and doctors. A country that despises others can hardly seek agreement over conflicts."

The Global Times, which is the same paper that maintained an unceasing barrage of rhetoric targeting New Delhi during the Doklam standoff, also accused India of "bigotry toward Pakistan".

However, the editorial admitted that terror groups indeed operate from Pakistani soil, but suggested that terrorism may not be Islamabad's national policy. "There is indeed terrorism in Pakistan. But is supporting terror the country's national policy?"

"What can Pakistan gain from exporting terrorism? Money or honor? Is India really an IT superpower that produces engineers and doctors when it is hell-bent on believing Pakistan is evil?" the paper continued.

Going on to advise India to "befriend China and respect Pakistan", the Global Times editorial added, "With smooth development of its economy and foreign relations in recent years, an arrogant India has looked down on Pakistan and assumed a haughty air with China."

The editorial also repeated what has been a standard Beijing stand - that everybody should see "the efforts and sacrifice that Pakistan has made to rid the world of terrorism and refrain from mixing disputes over terrorism with their own historical disputes."   

'EXPORTING TERROR'

On Saturday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tore in Pakistan in a statement that will perhaps be best remembered for her saying that while India has produce premier institutes of engineering (IITs) and management (IIMs), Pakistan has produced terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

"Why is it that today India is a recognized IT superpower in the world and Pakistan is recognized only as the pre-eminent export factory for terror?" Swaraj questioned at the UNGA hall in New York.

Swaraj's hard-hitting speech at the United Nations was met with Islamabad fielding a top-level diplomat to counter the accusations. Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's representative to the United Nations, exercised her country's right of reply to say that India, and not Pakistan, was the 'mother of terrorism' in south Asia.

Lodhi, however, was caught in an embarrassing gaffe when she confidently waved around a photo of a girl she suggested had been injured by pellet gun fire in Jammu and Kashmir. That photo, it turned out, was that of a Palestinian woman injured in air strikes in Gaza.

India on Monday shamed Islamabad for the lie, with a junior Indian diplomat - Paolomi Tripathi - telling the UNGA, "The Permanent Representative of Pakistan misled this Assembly by displaying this picture to spread falsehoods about India. A fake picture to push a completely false narrative."

Tripathi went on to hold up a picture of Lt. Ummer Fayaz, who was killed by militants in Kashmir, and said, "This is a real picture, of Lt Ummer Fayaz, a young officer from Jammu and Kashmir. He was brutally tortured and killed by Pakistan-supported terrorists."

WATCH | India hits back at Maleeha Lodhi at UN